This is a compelling video that reveals the Liberal leadership’s change of heart and their reinvention of history…
Thanks to my friend Jay for sharing this video.
This was definitely a keeper video. Please share it with your friends and spread the word. May you all have a blessed Memorial Day weekend. Remember those who fought and who died to and to those serving in uniform protecting our freedoms. God bless all of them and their families.
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Former President Hurls Insult From The Cheap Seats; Ignores Own Foreign Policy Track Record
Former President Jimmy Carter Recklessly Lashes Out At President On Foreign Policy:
"Former President Carter Says President Bush's Administration Is 'The Worst In History' In International Relations, Taking Aim At The White House's Policy Of Pre-Emptive War And Its
FLASHBACK: Foreign Policy Under Carter Administration:
"Carter's Foreign Policy Is Widely Considered A Failure." (Peter Beinart, Op-Ed, "The Rehabilitation Of The Cold-War Liberal," The
During A Commencement Address In 1977, Carter Claimed "We Are Now Free Of That Inordinate Fear Of Communism." "Four years ago, at another Notre Dame commencement, President Carter delivered what became one of his best-known and controversial statements: '...We are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I'm glad that's being changed.'" (Lou Cannon, "'The Gipper' Returns to Notre Dame," The
During His First Visit To A Communist Country In 1977, Carter Claimed "Old Ideological Labels Have Lost Their Meanings." "Carter, making his first official visit to a Communist country, left the plane in a light snow flurry and a bitter wing that snapped the Polish and American flags flying for the occasion. ... In his arrival statement, Carter said: 'It is a world in which old ideological labels have lost their meanings and in which the basic goals of friendship, peace, justice, human rights, and individual freedoms loom more important than ever.'" (Stephen H. Miller, The Associated Press, 12/29/77)
In 1979, 60 Americans Were Held Hostage In
In 1980, The
In 1979, U.S. Ambassador To
In 1979, The
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John Edwards Campaigns By Politicizing And Profiting Off The Troops
Today, Former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) Will Deliver A Major Speech On Military Policy:
Edwards Is Scheduled To Deliver A "Major Policy Address On Military Policy And National Security" At The Center On Foreign Relations. (John Edwards For President Website, www.johnedwards.com, Accessed 5/21/07)
Edwards' Military Policy Has Turned Ending The War In
The Politico's Ben Smith: "Edwards Supporters, For Instance, Are Regularly Informed That They Should Stop The War By Making Out A Check To John Edwards For President." (Ben Smith, "War And Politics In Obama's Canvass," The Politico's "Democrats '08 Blog," www.politico.com, 5/19/07)
The Edwards Campaign Is Selling T-Shirts And Bumper Stickers To Help "End The War." David Bonior, Edwards' Campaign Manager: "I remember when it seemed like there was nothing we as individuals could do to help bring an end to the war in
The Edwards Campaign Has Also Asked Supporters To Help End The War By Paying For Its TV Ads. "This is the moment of truth on
And Its Newspaper Ads: "This is the critical moment in our effort to end the war. ... Last night, my staff put the [petition] signatures into a full page ad for The Washington Post and now we need to raise $29,559 to rush it into print and keep the pressure on. We need 1,000 people to contribute $29.56 to make it happen. Can you chip in your $29.56 today?" (John Edwards For President, "Every Desk And Doorstep In D.C.," Press Release, 5/10/07)
Edwards Wants To Turn A Day Of Memoriam Into A Day Of Political Protest:
Edwards' Plan To Remember The Troops On Memorial Day: Protest The War. "Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is calling on his supporters to turn this year's Memorial Day into a day of antiwar activism, saying that the best way to honor the troops is to demand an end to the
"Democrat John Edwards' Call For Voters To Speak Out Against The
Edwards Doesn't Sound Like He Supports The Troops:
"Presidential Hopeful John Edwards On Monday Repeated His Call For Americans To Speak Out Against The War In
When Edwards Refuted His
In 2003, Edwards Voted Against The $87 Billion Reconstruction Package To Fund The Troops And Rebuild
Edwards May Have Fallen Victim To His Own 2002 Observation:
Edwards: "Many People In This Town Are So Accustomed To Fighting Political Wars That They Lose Sight Of The Real Wars We Must Fight And Win." (Sen. John Edwards, Remarks At The Center For Strategic And International Studies,
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Presidential Candidates Clinton And Obama Reverse Their Positions On Troop Funding To Pander To MoveOn.org's Wishes
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) And Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) Voted Against Providing Funds For The Troops In
Obama And Clinton Voted Against The
But Just Last Month, Obama Said That Congress Would Provide Funding For The Troops, Saying "Nobody Wants To Play Chicken With Our Troops On The Ground":
"'I Think That Nobody Wants To Play Chicken With Our Troops On The Ground,' Said Obama." (Mike Glover, "Obama Says Congress Will Fund
"Given That Bush Is Determined To Veto A Timetable For Withdrawing
Earlier This Month,
"[
Clinton And Obama Pandered To The Left To Retain The Support Of Ultra-Liberal Anti-War Groups:
MoveOn.org Threatened Democrats Who Did Not Vote Against The War Funding Bill: "MoveOn.org, a leading antiwar group, rallied its 3.2 million members in an e-mail alert ... that declared that 'every single Democrat must oppose this bill.' The group warned that it would consider backing primary challengers to Democrats who vote yes. Other organizations issued similar angry threats." (Shailagh Murray, "Antiwar Groups Press Democrats To Vote Against
The Democrat Candidates Are Trying To "Outmaneuver" Each Other For Left-Wing Endorsements. "[C]linton and Obama as well as former Sen. John Edwards of
Senate Republicans and Democrats reached a delicate compromise on an ambitious bill to overhaul the nation's immigration policy.
The deal would provide legal status to some 12 million immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally and offer an eventual path to citizenship. It aims to staunch the flow of future illegal immigrants by boosting border security and creating a guest-worker program. It would also recalibrate a longstanding policy that gives preference to immigrants with family in the U.S. by giving added weight to immigrants with job skills, including education and English proficiency.
The bill, which President Bush wants to sign by the end of summer, is likely his last chance at reaching a "grand bargain" to cement a legacy issue for his administration. A similar accord last year collapsed in the House under Republican divisions. And a compromise, filled with political risks, will become more difficult to reach as the 2008 elections draw closer.
Here's a closer look:
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POINTS OF VIEWIllegal Immigrants: The biggest question centers on what to do with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. The proposal would create a new "Z visa" and immediate work authorization for illegal immigrants who had entered the country before Jan. 1, 2007. Z visa applicants would have to pass a background check, pay as much as $5,000 in fines and fees and pass an English proficiency test. Visas would be renewable every four years for $500. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 15% to 20% of immigrants would be ineligible because of their criminal record.
Visa holders would eventually be able to apply for a green card, which provides legal permanent resident status and is a step to citizenship, but they would have to return to their home country to apply. Applications wouldn't be considered until the current backlog of green cards is cleared, which will take about eight years. Altogether, it would take between eight and 13 years to receive a green card.
More than 1.26 million people obtained green cards last year, up from 1.1 million in 2005 and 950,000 in 2004, and about 65% of those recipients already lived in the U.S., either on a temporary visa or without documentation.
Guest Workers: The bill creates a new, temporary "Y visa" for as many as 400,000 guest workers, roughly equal to the number of illegal immigrants who enter the U.S. every year. Workers could come to the U.S. for two years at a time and the visa could be renewed twice, for a total of six years. But workers would have to return home for a year in between each stay. Only 10,000 guest workers could become permanent residents.
A separate program would provide temporary legal status to as many as 1.5 million undocumented agricultural workers in a five-year pilot project that would allow those who continued to work on farms to apply for a green card.
Border Security: The bill wouldn't allow the government to issue any visas until it meets certain "triggers," including the addition of 6,000 new border-security officers, 370 miles of new border fence, 200 miles of vehicle barriers and 70 surveillance towers. Most estimates say it would take about 18 months to meet those triggers. Employers also would have to verify whether job applicants were eligible to work in the country using a new electronic worker registry.
Economic Preference: The bill would restructure U.S. immigration policy that, since 1965, has given preference to applicants with relatives in the U.S. The new policy would limit family visas to just young children and spouses of immigrants while substantially increasing the number of immigrants admitted on economic merits using an as-yet-undetermined point system.
Such a system would reward workers with English proficiency, experience living in the U.S., an employer's endorsement and higher levels of education, especially in science, math and technology. It would favor workers with skills for jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics sees as the fastest growing, including software engineers and nurses. But many of those jobs are low-skilled: Slightly less than half of the 30 fastest-growing jobs require a bachelor's degree.
Last year, 800,000 green cards, about two-thirds of the total issued, were sponsored by families of citizens or legal residents, compared with the 160,000, or 13%, that were employer-sponsored. The proposed legislation would award 550,000 family-based visas and 380,000 merit-based visas after the current backlog has been cleared.
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Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com7
| URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117954043651908434.html |
McCain Goes Nuts Near Senate Floor
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, launched into a shouting match during a Thursday Capitol Hill meeting, where reportedly the presidential candidate dropped the "F” word and more.
According to reports in the Washington Post and the New York Post, Cornyn apparently got the former POW’s attention when he raised the issue about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive.
In a meeting room just off the Senate floor, McCain opined that Cornyn was purposely raising petty objections to a compromise plan then being hammered out between Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House.
"This is chickens--- stuff," McCain fired at Cornyn, according to the news reports. "You've always been against this bill, and you're just trying to derail it."
Not to be outdone, Cornyn accused McCain of being too occupied campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations.
"Wait a second here," Cornyn said to McCain. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."
"F--- you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room," McCain reportedly rejoined.
McCain, who has missed 42 votes this year, hasn't been intimately involved in the comprehensive immigration reform debate for months.
Reportedly, the shouting match was played out in front of a bipartisan group of senators and aides who had gathered in the meeting room.
Pundits suggest that the temper flare may reopen the can-of-worms that is McCain's "anger-management problem."
Brian Jones, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, acknowledged that a "spirited exchange" did take place.
"Negotiating such a large and important piece of legislation can be intense, and a spirited exchange did occur," Jones said. "[McCain] is somebody who feels very passionate about his work and about solving the problems facing the country."
May 22, 2007 —
Even in death, the Rev. Jerry Falwell rouses the most volatile of emotions.
A small group of protesters gathered near the funeral services to criticize the man who mobilized Christian evangelicals and made them a major force in American politics -- often by playing on social prejudices.
A group of students from Falwell's Liberty University staged a counterprotest.
And Campbell County authorities arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car.
The student, 19-year-old Mark D. Uhl of Amissville, Va., reportedly told authorities that he was making the bombs to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service. The devices were made of a combination of gasoline and detergent, a law enforcement official told ABC News' Pierre Thomas. They were "slow burn," according to the official, and would not have been very destructive.
"There were indications that there were others involved in the manufacturing of these devices and we are still investigating these individuals with the assistance of ATF [Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms], Virginia State Police and FBI. At this time it is not believed that these devices were going to be used to interrupt the funeral services at Liberty University," the Campbell County Sheriff's Office said in a release.
Three other suspects are being sought, one of whom is a soldier from Fort Benning, Ga., and another is a high school student. No information was available on the third suspect.
Authorities were alerted to the potential bomb plot after relative of Uhl called to say that he had homemade bombs in his possession. Officials searched Uhl's car where they found five incendiary devices in the trunk.
Uhl is currently being held under no bond at the Campbell County Adult Detention Center.
Falwell, often called the father of the Christian conservative movement, died suddenly last week at age 73.
Thousands flocked to the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., which Falwell founded 50 years ago, for the funeral service.
The church had just 35 parishioners when Falwell began preaching there in 1956. At Tuesday's service, its 6,000 seats were filled by people who'd come to say goodbye.
"Almost every single person gathered here today is really here because on a real and personal level you and Dr. Jerry Falwell were friends," said Ronald S. Godwin, executive vice president of Liberty University.
To the end, though, Falwell inspired strong feelings. He launched an evangelical movement that changed the face of American religion and politics and catapulted him to national prominence from his "Old Time Gospel Hour" television show.
Falwell's Moral Majority, a group he founded in the 1970s, broke new ground in mobilizing evangelical Christians in the political arena, helping Ronald Reagan win the White House in 1980.
As time went on, however, Falwell's influence waned, partly due to his own penchant for controversy.
But his comments in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks made it nearly impossible for mainstream politicians to associate with him.
No national Republicans attended Tuesday's funeral, including none of the GOP presidential candidates. All said they were too busy.
Is all that ails the U.S. health-care system that it's not run by a communist dictatorship? That has long been a premise of apologists for Fidel Castro who extol the virtues of medical care on his totalitarian island nation. Left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is reviving this Cold War relic of an argument in his new movie on health care, "Sicko," which premieres in a few weeks and favorably compares the Cuban health-care system to ours. Moore ostentatiously took a few sick 9/11 workers to Cuba for care. "If they can do this," Moore told Time magazine, referring to the Cubans, "we can do it." All that the Cuban government has done, however, is run a decades-long propaganda campaign to convince credulous or dishonest people that its health-care system is worth emulating. These people believe -- or pretend to believe for ideological reasons -- that a dictatorship can crush a country's economy and spirit, yet still deliver exemplary medical care. Cuban health care works only for the select few: if you are a high-ranking member of the party or the military and have access to top-notch clinics; or a health-care tourist who can pay in foreign currency at a special facility catering to foreigners; or a documentarian who can be relied upon to produce a lickspittle film whitewashing the system.
Ordinary Cubans experience the wasteland of the real system. Even aspirin and Pepto-Bismol can be rare and there's a black market for them. According to a report in the Canadian newspaper the National Post: "Hospitals are falling apart, surgeons lack basic supplies and must reuse latex gloves. Patients must buy their sutures on the black market and provide bed sheets and food for extended hospital stays."
How could it be any different when Cuba embarked on a campaign of economic self-sabotage with the revolution of 1959? It went from third in per capita food consumption in Latin America to near the bottom, according to a State Department report. Per capita consumption of basic foodstuffs like cereals and meat actually has declined from the 1950s. There are fewer cars (true of no other country in the hemisphere), and development of electrical power has trailed every other Latin American country except Haiti.
But the routine medical care, we're supposed to believe, is superb. The statistic frequently cited for this proposition is that Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America. Put aside that the reflexively dishonest Cuban government is the ultimate source for these figures. Cuba had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America prior to the revolution and has lost ground to other countries around the world since. It also has an appallingly high abortion rate, meaning most problem pregnancies are pre-emptively ended.
Other countries in Latin America have made advances in health without Cuba's vicious suppression of human rights (which, no doubt, contributes to the island having the highest suicide rate in Latin America). The way public health works in Cuba was nicely illustrated by the case of Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero, who complained of an outbreak of dengue fever that the regime preferred to ignore in the late 1990s, and was jailed for his trouble.
As is always the case with Cuba, anything that's wrong is blamed on the United States. If there is a shortage of medicine, well, that's because of the U.S. embargo. But the United States is not the only country in the world that sells drugs. Cuba could buy them from Europe or elsewhere, and the U.S. embargo makes an exception for medicines.
The only reason to fantasize about Cuban health care is to stick a finger in the eye of the Yanquis. For the likes of Michael Moore, the true glory of Cuba is less its health care than the fact that it is an enemy of the United States. That's why romanticizing Cuban medicine isn't just folly, but itself qualifies as a kind of sickness.
Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years .
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"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine US will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government]."
The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat. "We expect that al-Qaida and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus's report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush's controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements]," the official said.
"Certainly it [the violence] is going to pick up from their side. There is significant latent capability in Iraq, especially Iranian-sponsored capability. They can turn it up whenever they want. You can see that from the pre-positioning that's been going on and the huge stockpiles of Iranian weapons that we've turned up in the last couple of months. The relationships between Iran and groups like al-Qaida are very fluid," the official said.
"It often comes down to individuals, and people constantly move around. For instance, the Sunni Arab so-called resistance groups use Salafi jihadist ideology for their own purposes. But the whole Iran- al-Qaida linkup is very sinister."
Iran has maintained close links to Iraq's Shia political parties and militias but has previously eschewed collaboration with al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents.
US officials now say they have firm evidence that Tehran has switched tack as it senses a chance of victory in Iraq. In a parallel development, they say they also have proof that Iran has reversed its previous policy in Afghanistan and is now supporting and supplying the Taliban's campaign against US, British and other Nato forces.
Tehran's strategy to discredit the US surge and foment a decisive congressional revolt against Mr Bush is national in scope and not confined to the Shia south, its traditional sphere of influence, the senior official in Baghdad said. It included stepped-up coordination with Shia militias such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi as well as Syrian-backed Sunni Arab groups and al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, he added. Iran was also expanding contacts across the board with paramilitary forces and political groups, including Kurdish parties such as the PUK, a US ally.
"Their strategy takes into account all these various parties. Iran is playing all these different factions to maximise its future control and maximise US and British difficulties. Their co-conspirator is Syria which is allowing the takfirists [fundamentalist Salafi jihadis] to come across the border," the official said.
Any US decision to retaliate against Iran on its own territory could be taken only at the highest political level in Washington, the official said. But he indicated that American patience was wearing thin.
Warning that the US was "absolutely determined" to hit back hard wherever it was challenged by Iranian proxies or agents inside Iraq, he cited the case of five alleged members of the Revolutionary Guard's al-Quds force detained in Irbil in January. Despite strenuous protests from Tehran, which claims the men are diplomats, they have still not been released.
"Tehran is behaving like a racecourse gambler. They're betting on all the horses in the race, even on people they fundamentally don't trust," a senior administration official in Washington said. "They don't know what the outcome will be in Iraq. So they're hedging their bets."
The administration official also claimed that notwithstanding recent US and British overtures, Syria was still collaborating closely with Iran's strategy in Iraq.
"80% to 90%" of the foreign jihadis entering Iraq were doing so from Syrian territory, he said.
Despite recent diplomatic contacts, and an agreement to hold bilateral talks at ambassadorial level in Baghdad next week, US officials say there has been no let-up in hostile Iranian activities, including continuing support for violence, weapons smuggling and training.
"Iran is perpetuating the cycle of sectarian violence through support for extra-judicial killing and murder cells. They bring Iraqi militia members and insurgent groups into Iran for training and then help infiltrate them back into the country. We have plenty of evidence from a variety of sources. There's no argument about that. That's just a fact," the senior official in Baghdad said.
In trying to force an American retreat, Iran's hardline leadership also hoped to bring about a humiliating political and diplomatic defeat for the US that would reduce Washington's regional influence while increasing Tehran's own.
But if Iran succeeded in "prematurely" driving US and British forces out of Iraq, the likely result would be a "colossal humanitarian disaster" and possible regional war drawing in the Sunni Arab Gulf states, Syria and Turkey, he said.
Despite such concerns, or because of them, the US welcomed the chance to talk to Iran, the senior administration official said. "Our agenda starts with force protection in Iraq," he said. But there were many other Iraq-related issues to be discussed. Recent pressure had shown that Iran's behaviour could be modified, the official claimed: "Last winter they were literally getting away with murder."
But tougher action by security forces in Iraq against Iranian agents and networks, the dispatch of an additional aircraft carrier group to the Gulf and UN security council resolutions imposing sanctions had given Tehran pause, he said.
Washington analysts and commentators predict that Gen Petraeus's report to the White House and Congress in early September will be a pivotal moment in the history of the four-and-a-half-year war - and a decision to begin a troop drawdown or continue with the surge policy will hinge on the outcome. Most Democrats and many Republicans in Congress believe Iraq is in the grip of a civil war and that there is little that a continuing military presence can achieve. "Political will has already failed. It's over," a former Bush administration official said.
A senior adviser to Gen Petraeus reported this month that the surge had reduced violence, especially sectarian killings, in the Baghdad area and Sunni-dominated Anbar province. But the adviser admitted that much of the trouble had merely moved elsewhere, "resulting in spikes of activity in Diyala [to the north] and some areas to the south of the capital". "Overall violence is at about the same level [as when the surge began in February]."
Iranian officials flatly deny US and British allegations of involvement in internal violence in Iraq or in attacks on coalition forces. Interviewed in Tehran recently, Mohammad Reza Bagheri, deputy foreign minister for Arab affairs with primary responsibility for Iran's policy in Iraq, said: "We believe it would be to the benefit of both the occupiers and the Iraqi people that they [the coalition forces] withdraw immediately."
New French president Nicolas Sarkozy's government will be taking a 'pragmatic' line on immigration, it says
New French Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux
France's minister of immigration and national identity, a new ministry created by President Nicolas Sarkozy, has ruled out legalizing undocumented immigrants en masse.
The new ministry said today that government policy would be dictated by firmness and pragmatism.
"We have to put aside massive legalization. It doesn't work and it penalizes, even immigrants," Brice Hortefeux said on Europe 1 radio.
Policy, he said, would be guided by "firmness and humanism" with "lots of pragmatism."
He also said he planned to adhere to the policy of deporting illegal immigrants from France. The number of deportees was expected to reach some 25,000 this year, and Hortefeux said he would ensure that figure is reached.
Hortefeux, a longtime confidant of Sarkozy, was among those named to the new government on Friday.
The conservative Sarkozy, elected president May 6, had reached out to the anti-immigration far right to capture votes, notably ruffling some feathers in his own camp with his promise to create a ministry of immigration and national identity.
Hortefeux said he planned to meet shortly with officials from sectors like the building and hotel and restaurant industries, known to rely heavily on immigrants.
Hortefeux also said he would not put into question a long-standing policy of "family grouping," by which immigrants in France can bring their families here.
However, he indicated, as Sarkozy had, that modifications may be made in order to ensure that those who join other family members in France can be integrated.
"It must be carried out in respect for the dignity of those who want to come and (in a way) that favors their integration," he said.
Sarkozy had said he wants to ensure that those who join families in France can speak French and that family members receiving them can support the newcomers.
Sunday , May 20, 2007
SEATTLE —
A man who tried to position himself as a leader of the anti-war movement by claiming to have participated in war crimes while serving in Iraq is facing federal charges of falsifying his record.Jesse Adam Macbeth, 23, formerly of Phoenix, garnered attention on blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocents in a Fallujah mosque. His story was contradicted by his discharge form, showing that he was kicked out of the Army after six weeks at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2003 because of his “entry level performance and conduct.”
A complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle charged him with one count of using or possessing a forged or altered military discharge certificate, and one count of making false statements in seeking benefits from the Veterans Administration.
Macbeth’s public defender, Jay Stansell, declined to comment.
Organizations that opposed the war, including Iraq Veterans Against the War, posted videos or statements containing Macbeth’s claims on their Web sites. In one videotaped interview, a skinny, stuttering Macbeth, dressed in a camouflage jacket, described slaughtering hundreds of people in a mosque: “We would burn their bodies ... hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque,” he said.
Iraq Veterans Against the War and other organizations removed the claims after learning they were false.
“He approached us in early 2006, posing as a war veteran. He seemed very emotionally distressed about his experiences,” said Amadee Braxton, a spokeswoman for Iraq Veterans Against the War, based in Philadelphia.
Macbeth claimed in an application for benefits to have served from May 2001 to June 2004, to have been shot in Iraq and to have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, LaMont E. Stokes, an agent with the VA’s Office of the Inspector General, wrote in the charging papers. He also collected more than $10,400 in benefits to which he was not entitled, Stokes wrote.
Stokes said he interviewed Macbeth in a Tacoma jail, where he has been serving a sentence for fourth-degree assault, and that Macbeth admitted falsifying the documents because he was homeless and wanted to “sucker” anything he could out of the government.
Phobia, as described by Webster... “an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.”
Foxnews.com picked up on an Arab News story coming out of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in Islamabad, Pakistan on Thursday that describes Islamaphobia as “the worst form of terrorism” and the OIC was asking for steps world wide to curb it.
The OIC describes Islamaphobia as the “deliberate defamation of Islam and discrimination and intolerance of Muslims.” The OIC alludes to Islamaphobia as a concern well before 9/11…“Islamophobia became a source of concern, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, but the phenomenon was already there in Western societies in one form or the other…” They offer no specific examples.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that the variety of the world’s non-Muslim countries cultures’ mix with Muslim culture like water and oil, but prior to 9/11; in spite of dozens of aircraft hijackings and the murders associated with many of them, in spite of the 1972 Olympics; in spite of the Achille Lauro (1985), in spite of the first WTC bombings (1993), in spite of the bombings of the Khobar Towers (1996), in spite of the indiscriminate killing of hundreds in the US Embassy bombings (1998), in spite of the USS Cole (2000), Muslims were able to live peacefully throughout the world without fear, harassment, nor threat of persecution.
In fact it is nearly impossible to directly associate any link between 9/11 and an increase in crimes against Muslims in the US. The best accounting I can find is here at religioustolerance.org, where the outrageous attacks on Muslims after 9/11 translates to 3 dead, one beaten, some threats made, and some property damaged.
Seems pale in comparison of the carnage that lies in the wake of motivated Muslims…twelve innocents dead in Munich, one innocent dead on the Achille Lauro and dumped into the sea, six dead and over 1000 injured in the first WTC bombing, twenty dead and 372 injured in the Khobar Towers bombings, over two hundred dead and 4000 injured in the US embassy bombings, seventeen dead in the USS Cole attack. Add in 2973 dead in the 9/11 attacks, 191 killed and 2050 injured in the Madrid bombings in 2004, Theo van Gogh murdered in the streets of Amsterdam 2004, fifty-two dead and 700 injured in the London bombings of July 2005, several killed and property damage worldwide in the aftermath of the Danish cartoon scandal of 2006. By my count that is nearly 3500 innocent people killed by those purporting to be believers in the religion “of peace.”
Sorry if I am more afraid of Muslims than I am of, let’s say, you run of the mill yokel who made some anti-Muslim remarks on 9/12. Those serving the Prophet have a much higher kill ratio than the Christians, the secularists, the atheists, the agnostics, the Jews, and the Wiccans combined.
I am at a loss to figure out how being afraid of Muslims, because they happen to be the world’s largest generator of terrorists, is a greater form of terror than the actual terror than that which is being perpetrated by Muslims extremists on the rest of the world’s population nearly everyday of our lives. This is like castigating an assault victim for being afraid of their attacker.
The OIC is clearly engaging in a classic “desensitivization” and “relativism” spin in trying to compare the brutal savagery committed by Muslim Jihadists over the past 35 years to the actual fear generated by those attacks. They are attempting to carve inroads into and place limitations on, our rights to free speech. And they are seeking an exceptional governmental deference towards their religion. All of which flies in the face of logic when compared to the body count that extreme Islamic Jihadists have racked up. Muslims need to be held accountable for those murders, not venerated as victims.
Is it irrational to fear shoe bombs, dirty bombs, homicidal bombers, homicidal hijackers, anonymous Muslim car bombers, armed kidnappers, video-taping beheaders, truck bombers, airplane crashers, hotel bombers, train bombers, subway bombers, ship bombers, when all of these terror methodologies have been used or attempted in the recent past?
The OIC needs a little perspective. As the second leading inter-governmental organization, behind the UN, it needs to understand that by condemning “discrimination and intolerance,” but not condemning murder and terror, they prove themselves the second biggest hypocritical inter-governmental organization in the world, also still behind the UN. It is inconceivable that an organization supposedly speaking for 57 nations and various other interested parties, can berate other countries for discrimination, while providing no proof or significant harm, but then fail to mention in the least the devastation that has been wrought on the rest of civilized by society by Muslim extremists.
To have murderous behavior defended by oblique attacks on the societies that have been victimized by such attacks is ludicrous in the extreme. Moderate Muslims, if they are who they claim to be, cannot put the loathing of terror and it perpetrators in the same category of wonton murder and terror upon innocents.
If fearing terrorists, Jihadists, wahabists, etc. and et. al., because of their brutal and indiscriminate killing sprees, makes me irrational AND an Islamaphobe…then, I guess I am one.
And sorry OIC…the worst form of terrorism is indiscriminate murder, not “defamation and intolerance.”
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Most Americans know that we have an illegal immigration problem in this country, with perhaps as many as 20 million people residing here unlawfully. And I think most Americans have a pretty good idea about how to at least start solving the problem – secure our nation’s borders.
But there’s an old saying in Washington that, in dealing with any tough issue, half the politicians hope that citizens don’t understand it while the other half fear that people actually do. This kind of thinking was apparent with the “comprehensive” immigration reform bill that the U.S. Senate and the White House negotiated yesterday.
I’d tell you what was in the legislation, but 24 hours after the politicians agreed the bill looked good, the Senate lawyers were still writing what may turn out to be a one thousand page document. In fact, a final version of the bill most likely will not be made available to the public until after the legislation is passed. That may come five days from now. That’s like trying to digest an eight-course meal on a fifteen-minute lunch break.
We’ve tried the “comprehensive” route before to solve the illegal immigration problem with a bit more care and deliberation, and the results haven’t been good. Back in May 1985, Congress promised us that it would come up with a comprehensive plan to solve the problem of illegal immigration and our porous borders. Eighteen months later, in November 1986, that comprehensive plan was signed into law.
Twenty-two years and millions of illegal immigrants later, that comprehensive plan hasn’t done what most Americans wanted it to do -- secure America’s borders. Now Washington says the new “comprehensive” plan will solve the problem that the last comprehensive plan didn’t.
The fact is our border and immigration systems are still badly broken. We were reminded of this when Newsweek reported that the family of three of the men, arrested last week for allegedly plotting to kill American military personnel at Fort Dix, New Jersey, entered the U.S. illegally more than 20 years ago; filed for asylum back in 1989, but fell off the government’s radar screen when federal bureaucrats essentially lost track of the paperwork. Wonder how many times that’s been replicated?
Is it any wonder that a lot of folks today feel like they’re being sold a phony bill of goods on border security? A “comprehensive” plan doesn’t mean much if the government can’t accomplish one of its most basic responsibilities for its citizens -- securing its borders. A nation without secure borders will not long be a sovereign nation.
No matter how much lipstick Washington tries to slap onto this legislative pig, it’s not going to win any beauty contests. In fact, given Congress’s track record, the bill will probably get a lot uglier -- at least from the public’s point of view. And agreeing to policies before actually seeing what the policies are is a heck of a way to do business.
We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders -- or at least made great headway. That would give proponents of the bill a chance to explain why putting illegals in a more favorable position than those who play by the rules is not really amnesty.
Fred Thompson is an actor and former Senator. His radio commentary airs on the ABC Radio Network and be blogs on The Fred Thompson Report.
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